Is this thy place, sad city, this thy throne?
Where the lone desert rears her craggy stone!
Where suns unblest their angry lustre fling,
And way-worn pilgrims seek the scanty spring.
Where now thy pomp, which kings with envy view'd?
Where now thy power, which all those kings subdued?
No martial myriads muster in thy gates,

No suppliant nation at thy temple waits,
No prophet bard thy glittering courts among

Wakes the full lyre, and swells the tide of song;
But lawless Force, and meagre Want is there,
And the quick-darting eye of restless Fear;
While cold Oblivion, mid thy ruins laid,
Folds his dank wing, beneath the ivy shade.

HEBER.

We entered the town by the gate of Damascus, and rode instantly to the Latin Convent, where we were kindly and hospitably received.

EVERY species of information, whether derived from books, or the minuter accuracy of verbal narrative, is insufficient to convey to a native of Europe any adequate idea of a country which has been constituted on principles essentially different from European usages; the mind having no comparative standard to refer to on a subject so totally new, is at a loss how to frame its conceptions, and it almost inevitably happens, that the reality has a very faint correspondence with the image prefigured. This observation applies with peculiar force to the traveller who visits the Holy Land. His arrival on the coast

of Syria introduces him to objects, that have no resemblance to those with which he has been hitherto associated the vegetable kingdom, the brute creation, and even his own species, are in appearance greatly dissimilar, and seem to point out that he is alighted on a new and distant planet.

The first sensations, therefore, which fill the visitor of Palestine, are those of lassitude and dejection; but as he progressively advances in these sacred precincts, and perceives an interminable plain spread out on all sides, those sensations are eventually succeeded by feelings more exalted. A mixed emotion of surprise and awe takes possession of his faculties, which, far from depressing the spirit, braces the mind, and elevates the heart. The stupendous scenes that are every where unfolded, announce to the spectator, that he surveys those regions which were once the chosen theatre of wonders. The burning climate, the impetuous eagle, the blighted figtree-all the poetry, all the painting of the sacred writings, are present to his view. Each venerable name reminds him of some mysterious agent ;-every valley seems to proclaim the warnings of futurity--every mountain to re-echo the hallowed accents of

inspiration!

The dread voice of THE ETERNAL

HIMSELF has sounded on these shores!

To tread the ground ouce trodden by the mightiest of mankind, and to read the history of nations in the mutilated fragments of those monuments which were consecrated to their glory, has been often, and with justice, stated as a source of the sublimest pleasure; but if considerations merely human can create these sensations, if the philosopher and historian feels himself overpowered with the weight of his reflections, as his eye glances on the spot "where Romulus stood, where Cicero spoke, and where Cæsar fell," with what increased emotions of awe and veneration will the Christian moralist contemplate

"Those holy fields,

"Over whose acres walk'd those blessed feet,

"Which" eighteen hundred " years ago were nail'd,
"For our advantage, to the bitter cross!"

(SHAKESPEARE-Heǹry IV. Part I. Act. i. Sc. i.)

Oppressed with the varied movements, which throng and agitate his bosom, he will yield for a while to the heart's impulse, and, seeking religion in her own peculiar sanctuary, bow down before her altars in chastened, fervent adoration!

The foundation of Jerusalem took place in a period of very remote antiquity. It is said to owe its origin to Melchisedech the high-priest, who traced its limits on the hills Moria and Acra, nineteen hundred and eighty-one years before the appearance of Jesus Christ. Its founder gave it the name of SALEM, a term expressive of its being designed for the habitation of peace! But how little its subsequent destinies accorded with the high promise of its title, a very slight survey of the early annals of the Jewish nation will sufficiently explain. Threescore years had scarcely elapsed before it fell into the power of the Jebusites, a tribe descended from Jebus, the son of Chanaan. The new possessors did not neglect the usual means of securing their conquest; they extended its walls, and built a fortress on mount Sion, which they called after their common father, and gave to the city the name it still bears, JERUSALEM; the "vision of tranquillity." Joshua, who succeeded to the government established by Moses, led the armies of Israel into the land of promise, and, advancing against the new city, soon made himself master of the lower part. He put to death Adonisedech, and the four confederate princes, the kings of Hebron,